Senate votes to advance Pete Hegseth as Trump’s defense secretary despite some Republican opposition – live

In remarks to reporters at the White House after signing a new batch of executive orders, Donald Trump claimed that Russia has lost a far higher number of soldiers fighting in Ukraine than experts and researchers estimate.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine is “ready to negotiate a deal; he’s ready to stop” the war, Trump said, because he has “lost a lot of soldiers”.

“Russia lost more soldiers”, Trump said, “They lost 800,000”. Trump has cited that death toll, without giving any idea of his source, at least three times since taking office this week.

The independent Russian news site Mediazona, working with the BBC’s Russian news service and a team of volunteers, reported in November that they had had identified the names of 80,973 Russian military personnel killed in the Russia-Ukraine war since February 2022.

Earlier this week, Trump told reporters that “almost a million Russian soldiers have been killed; about 700,000 Ukrainian soldiers were killed.”

As The New York Times reports, Russian researchers and journalists have estimated that Russia had suffered more than 150,000 battlefield deaths, and the independent Ukrainian war correspondent Yurii Butusov reported on YouTube last month that his sources inside Ukraine’s armed forces told him that 105,000 soldiers have been “irreversibly lost,” with 70,000 killed and 35,000 missing. That’s a far higher death toll the 43,000 soldiers that President Volodymyr Zelensky claimed had been killed as of Dec. 8, but far lower than Trump’s estimate.

Here’s a recap of the latest developments:

• A federal judge in Seattle blocked Donald Trump’s executive order curtailing the right to automatic birthright citizenship in the US. US district judge John Coughenour issued a temporary restraining order preventing the administration from enforcing the order, calling it “blatantly unconstitutional”.

• The Senate voted to advance the nomination of Pete Hegseth to become the next US secretary of defense, despite some Republican opposition. Senators Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska announced that they would oppose Hegseth’s nomination, making them the first two Republican lawmakers to publicly reject one of Trump’s cabinet picks.

• The Senate voted to confirm John Ratcliffe as CIA director, giving Trump the second member of his new cabinet. The Senate voted to confirm Ratcliffe, a former Texas representative and director of national intelligence during Trump’s first term, by 74-25, with 20 Democrats and one independent joining Republicans in backing the nomination.

• Trump made a combative return to the world stage in an address to the World Economic Forum in Davos, accusing oil producers of prolonging the Ukraine war by failing to cut prices, and threatening tariffs on all US imports. He repeated his call for Nato countries to dramatically increase defence spending and complained about what he called an “unfair” trading relationship with China.

• The state department has frozen all applications for passports with “X” sex markers and changes to gender identity on existing passports, following a new executive order signed by Trump on his first day of office. “The policy of the United States is that an individual’s sex is not changeable,” according to an internal email from the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, that was shared with the Guardian.

• Trump has ended security detail for three of his former administration officials so far since returning to the White House: his former secretary of state Mike Pompeo, former top aide Brian Hook and former national security adviser John Bolton.

• Trump held his first official call with a foreign leader since returning to the White House, speaking with the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, on Wednesday. In its readout of the call, the Saudi state-run Saudi Press Agency said the crown prince told Trump that he wanted to invest $600bn in the US over the next four years.

Lauren Gambino

Donald Trump “overreached by a mile” with his attempt to dismantle the longstanding constitutional guarantee of birthright citizenship, the California attorney general, Rob Bonta, said.

California along with a coalition of states and the city of San Francisco are suing the administration over an executive order issued just hours after Trump was sworn into office on Monday that would deny automatic citizenship to some children born in the United States – a move they argue is in “flagrant violation” of the US constitution.

“Just because he’s the president doesn’t mean he can change the US constitution,” Bonta, a Democrat, said in an interview this week. “In fact, it is absolutely clear – it is civics 101 – that he cannot.”

The lawsuit, led by California, New Jersey and Massachusetts and filed in the US district court for Massachusetts, argues the order would cause “irreparable harm” to the states and their residents by denying citizenship rights to the US-born children whose parents are not lawful residents.

A second multi-state lawsuit challenging the order was filed in the western district of Washington, where a federal judge on Thursday temporarily blocked the order from taking effect. The American Civil Liberties Union and other groups representing pregnant women whose children would be affected by the order have also sued.

The Senate has voted 51 to 49 to advance Pete Hegseth’s nomination to become secretary of defense, despite grave objections from Democrats over his behavior and qualifications to lead the US military.

All but two Republicans, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski, voted to advance his nomination, clearing his way for a vote on his confirmation later this week.

The former combat veteran and Fox News host faces allegations of sexual assault, excessive alcohol use and financial mismanagement.

Although he has denied the allegation of sexual assault, Hegseth paid a settlement to a woman who accused him of rape in 2017. A new claim emerged this week in an affidavit from Hegseth’s former sister-in-law who claimed he was abusive to his second wife to the pont that she feared for her safety. Hegseth has denied the allegation.

The Senate is currently voting on a key procedural motion to end debate on Pete Hegseth’s nomination for secretary of defense.

Susan Collins, the Republican senator of Maine, has voted against Hegseth’s nomination, joining the Alaska senator Lisa Murkowski.

In a statement, Collins said she was “concerned” that Hegseth “does not have the experience and perspective necessary to succeed in the job”.

She also expressed concern about “multiple statements” that Hegseth has made about women serving in the military, adding:

He and I had a candid conversation in December about his past statements and apparently evolving views. I am not convinced that his position on women serving in combat roles has changed.

The Senate voted on Thursday to confirm John Ratcliffe as CIA director, giving Donald Trump the second member of his new cabinet.

The Senate voted to confirm Ratcliffe by 74-25, with 20 Democrats and one independent joining Republicans in backing the nomination.

Ratcliffe, a former Texas representative, previously served as director of national intelligence during Trump’s first term.

Lisa Murkowski, the Republican senator from Alaska, announced she would oppose Pete Hegseth’s nomination to be secretary of defense.

In a statement posted to X, Murkowski said she had met with Hegseth and “carefully” reviewed his writings, various reports, and other “pertinent” materials.

After thorough evaluation, I must conclude that I cannot in good conscience support his nomination for Secretary of Defense.

She said she had not taken this decision “lightly”, adding that she believed that Hegseth’s prior roles “do not demonstrate to me that he is prepared for such immense responsibility”.

Hegseth faces a key procedural vote on Thursday afternoon.

A federal judge has temporarily blocked Donald Trump’s executive order ending the constitutional guarantee of birthright citizenship, calling it “blatantly unconstitutional”.

US district judge John Coughenour ruled in the case brought by the states of Washington, Arizona, Illinois and Oregon, which argue the 14th amendment and supreme court case law have cemented birthright citizenship.

That executive order, which Trump signed on Monday after taking office, directs US agencies to refuse to recognise the citizenship of children born in the US if neither their mother nor father is a US citizen or legal permanent resident.

The executive order has already become the subject of multiple lawsuits, with civil rights groups and Democratic attorneys general from 22 states calling it flagrantly unconstitutional.

Robert Tait

The Department of Justice has ordered its civil rights division to halt new cases, further signalling the new administration’s hostility to racial and gender equality since Donald Trump’s return to power.

The decision came amid a blur of frenzied activity across a range of sectors that sent out simultaneous signals of incipient purges and revenge against political opponents, along with a determination to act on radical campaign pledges.

The call to halt civil rights cases – set out in an instruction to Kathleen Wolfe, the new acting head of the justice department’s civil rights division – followed an earlier order putting staff on federal diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility programs on immediate leave as a prelude to shutting such programs down.

Activists called the move “unprecedented” and warned that it indicated a government intention to abandon civil rights and protections against discrimination that have been enshrined in legislation since the 1950s and 1960s.

The US state department has frozen all applications for passports with “X” sex markers and changes to gender identity on existing passports, following a new executive order signed by Donald Trump on his first day of office.

In an internal email shared with the Guardian, the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, instructed department staff on Thursday to implement the strict new guidelines for official documentation.

“The policy of the United States is that an individual’s sex is not changeable,” the email read.

Rubio’s directive states that “sex, and not gender, shall be used” in official documents including passports and consular report of birth abroad documents.

State department staff on Thursday were ordered to “suspend any application requesting an X sex marker” and to “suspend any application where the applicant is seeking to change their sex marker” from the definition provided in the executive order. The policy affects both current and future passport applications.

Donald Trump has ended security detail for three of his former administration officials so far since returning to the White House.

Mike Pompeo, Trump’s former secretary of state, Brian Hook, a former top aide, and John Bolton, his former national security adviser, have had their security protections revoked within 72 hours of Trump’s second term.

Trump’s decision to remove their security details, which were believed to be provided by the state department, comes despite warnings from the Biden administration that both men faced ongoing threats from Iran due to actions they took following Trump’s orders during his first term as president.

Trump’s first administration had been particularly aggressive towards Iran. Most notably, Trump ordered an airstrike that killed Iran’s most powerful general, Qassem Suleimani, in early 2020.

Under US protocol, senior officials other than former presidents and their spouses are not automatically guaranteed ongoing protection. But US intelligence agencies deemed Hook, Pompeo and Bolton to be under significant risk, which prompted the Biden administration to grant them protection.

Donald Trump set out more details of his economic policy in a typically blustering speech to the World Economic Forum in Davos on Thursday.

Companies must make their products in the United States or face tariffs, the US president told his audience.

Here’s a recap of what else he said:

• He repeated his call for Nato countries to increase defense spending to 5% of gross domestic product (GDP). Noting that many nations did not meet the 2% GDP target until he challenged them, during his first term, Trump said: “It was only at 2% and most nations didn’t pay until I came along. I insisted that they pay, and they did, because the United States was really paying the difference at that time.”

• He declared the US will begin “demanding respect from other nations”, singling out Canada and the European Union. He said Canada could “become a state” of the US, as a way of eradicating the US trade deficit with Canada. “We don’t need their cars and we don’t need their lumber.” On the EU, he said he believes the US has been treated “very, very unfairly” by the bloc. “They don’t take our farm products and they don’t take our cars. yet they send cars to us by the millions,” he said.

• He urged Saudi Arabia and the oil-producing cartel Opec to cut oil prices, claiming this would end the war in Ukraine. “They should have done it long ago. They’re very responsible, actually, to a certain extent, for what’s taking place,” he said. The oil price took a tumble after Trump’s speech.

• He said the US needs to double its energy production, partly to fuel artificial intelligence. Trump said he will fast-track the approvals for new power plants, which companies can site next to their plants – something not currently possible under regulations. Worryingly, he declared that companies will be able to fuel it with anything they want, and have coal as a backup, “good, clean coal”.

• He said he wants a “fair relationship” with China over the next four years, adding that he wants a “level playing field”. Trump said he looked forward to “doing very well with China and getting along with China” during his presidency. He added that he hoped Beijing would help the US in ending the Ukraine war. “They have a great deal of power over that situation,” he said.

The Senate Intelligence Committee will hold a confirmation hearing for Tulsi Gabbard, Donald Trump’s pick for director of national intelligence, on 30 January at 10am ET.

Gabbard, a former Democratic congresswoman for Hawaii, has faced scrutiny for her stances on international affairs, including accusations that she was being “groomed” by Russia and for a 2017 meeting with the Syrian dictator, Bashar al-Assad.

Donald Trump outlined his economic policies to the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, saying he believed lower oil prices would end the war in Ukraine and bring down interest rates globally. He also restated his vow to impose tariffs on companies who do not manufacture products in the United States, and said he’d like to meet with Vladimir Putin to end his invasion of his neighbor. We’ll see more from the president later today, when he signs another executive order, though the White House has not said what that might concern. Meanwhile, the Senate is gearing up to take an important first vote on Pete Hegseth’s controversial nomination to lead the Pentagon.

Here’s what else is going on today:

• Sean Curran, a Secret Service agent who hustled Trump away after an assassin tried to kill him at a rally in July, has been named director of the agency tasked with protecting the president.

• Immigration and customs enforcement made hundreds of arrests in the first few hours of Trump’s presidency, Fox News reports.

• A federal judge in Seattle will today hear a challenge by four Democratic-led states challenging Trump’s executive order curtailing birthright citizenship.